


without saying a word

by petitcorbeau



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 17:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17532902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petitcorbeau/pseuds/petitcorbeau
Summary: A 3.13 episode tag exploring the goodbye between Eliot and Quentin before they get their memories erased.





	without saying a word

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing fic in more than a decade. Be kind. Tip your waiter.

When you live an entire lifetime with someone, you develop a sort of shorthand language that doesn’t require words. The tilt of a head, the pressure in the squeeze of a hand, the squint of an eye can convey entire sentences without so much as an utterance.

A weary huff laced with frustration became, “I cannot spend one more goddamn minute on this mosaic.”

A reassuring, lingering squeeze of the hand became, “You rest, I’ll take over for awhile.”

An arm firmly around his shoulder became, “I’m so sorry she is gone, but I’m still here.”

The crinkle of an eye filled with love and surrounded by the lines of time became, “I couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone but you.”

So when Dean Fogg goes turn coat with a Library memory wipe reach around there is precious little time for goodbyes and too big an audience for intimate declarations. 

He finds himself last in line for what might be the only cocktail he wouldn’t be willing to drink with Quentin conveniently on his right. Margo was near the beginning, already knocked out on fascist juice with a glamour that cannot nearly measure up to her. There are two people in this whole fucked world he would save a dramatic farewell for, and since one is currently indisposed he will be damned if he isn’t able to give one to Quentin. 

The very thought of never seeing him again causes a ball of emotion so thick to swell in his throat he would be beyond words even if he wanted to, but he and Quentin are well beyond needing them anyway.

When he stoops lower to give Quentin’s shoulder an indelicate nudge it becomes, “We don’t have much time and I need you to know something.”

When he tilts his head softly but purses his lips in slight defiance it becomes, “I’m so sorry I changed the plan, but I’m also not sorry at all.”

When he strains against the ropes that cut into his wrists and Quentin does the same to offer a desperate squeeze with desperate fingers it becomes, “I didn’t want to live without you, I don’t want to live without you.”

And when he looks with tender eyes that bely terror in his heart into Quentin’s, whose have become frantic as Fogg has reached Kady, who is just to his right it becomes, “It will be alright, I will find and I will seduce you and so lift your spirits so that life retains its sparkle for decades.”

He has always been shit at missing an opportunity to joke in tragic circumstances, so when Quentin’s eyes go warm and crinkle in the corners and he nods his head before he turns to take down Fogg’s vial with renewed courage, Eliot is glad that Quentin understands he actually said “I love you.”

And just before he feels sinister tendrils invade his senses as Quentin hits the floor, Eliot is heartened by the fact that Quentin said, “I love you right back.”


End file.
